佛教徒要不要去挣钱呢？

II. The principles to be followed

二、理应遵循的原则

Having avoided duality, the actual way of living would vary with times. In the Buddha’s opinion，we Buddhists should measure our life against the living standards of ordinary people in our times, not too low and not too high. This is how the Buddha defined a normal life.

远离这两个边以后，真正的生活模式是怎么样的呢？在不同的时代，不同的环境，生活的标准是不一样的。佛认为，佛教徒应以自己所处时代的普通生活水平为准绳，既不要太低，也不要太高，佛认为这就是真正的正常生活。

Well, does it mean that we do not need to think about money from now on? No, we can still try to make money, but how to treat money is another matter that needs to be carefully considered. Whether money is earned as in the case of laypeople or received by the monastics as an offering, it is important to know that money is not the property of any one person but belongs to all sentient beings. One is only helping sentient beings to manage and distribute the money and hence it should be spent wherever it is needed to benefit others.

这样一来，我们是不是从此以后就再也不挣钱了呢？可以挣钱，但要掌握好如何看待钱财的问题。无论是自己挣的钱，或者是修学菩萨道的出家人接受别人供养所得的钱，都要知道这些钱不属于自己，而是属于众生，自己只是帮众生管理和分配这些钱而已，哪里需要做善事，就把钱送到哪里。

If one holds such view, even lay practitioners can go and make more money than it is required for a normal life. Lacking it, however, one would be deemed violating the Buddha’s principle of living, that is, being content with fewer desires, and can never be truly happy. Then, it makes no difference if one is a monastic accepting an offering or a layperson making more money than is needed for a normal life.

如果抱着这种态度，则即使是在家的修行人，也可以去挣超过正常生活水准以外的钱；如果缺乏了这种态度，则无论是出家人接受别人的供养，还是在家人去挣超出标准生活之外的钱，都违背了少欲知足的原则，故而永远都不会幸福。